Vauxhall And I [Remastered 20th Anniversary] (LP)

Morrissey

Amoeba Review

06/02/2014

Morrissey’s most consistently great album finally gets the remaster and reissue treatment. Though Vauxhaull’s songs are among the most-beloved in Morrissey’s solo catalog, this definitive remaster clears up some of Steve Lillywhite’s ethereal yet sometimes murky production, giving songs like glorious opener “Now My Heart Is Full” their due. Revisiting the album reveals just how terrific these songs are in all of their variety, how songs like the atmospheric “Spring-Heeled Jim” flow into the erotically charged “Billy Budd” and sentimental “Hold On to Your Friends.” Though Vauxhall and I achieved Morrissey’s highest-chart success for his still excellent rock single “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get,” Morrissey has always been able to pull of brilliant singles; it’s the in-between songs that make it a classic album, like the softly venomous “Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself,” and though it’s a somber album, it’s less melodramatic, too, giving his lyrics more weight—“I Am Hated For Loving’s” “I am falling, and there’s still no one to catch me” feels as devastating in its simplicity as anything he’s written. The reissue adds a live disc from 1995 at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, including a faithful, dreamy rendition of “Moon River.”